Gold nanoparticles in combinatorial cancer therapy strategies

Cancer is one of the most important health issues, which is the second leading cause of death in the world. Conventional cancer therapy methods encounter with serious drawbacks and cannot often provide satisfactory outcomes. It has been demonstrated that the effect of various treatment modalities can be enhanced when combined with nanomaterials. Moreover, a new trend is being emerged in clinical oncology to shift from monotherapy toward combination therapy in the presence of useful nanomaterials. This way, the synergistic interactions occur among different treatments, which result in much stronger therapeutic effect than separate use of corresponding monotherapies. Recently, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been widely implemented as one of the leading nanomaterials for combinatorial cancer therapy. In this review article, the importance and benefits of AuNPs in the field of combinatorial cancer therapy are firstly explained. Then, the applications of AuNPs in the most clinically established cancer therapy modalities, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a variety of hyperthermia methods will be described. Recent progresses in the application of AuNPs in dual- and triple-modality cancer therapies will be reviewed. Also, a brief summary of the role of AuNPs in photodynamic therapy and gene therapy will be provided. Finally, the opportunities and challenges of the entry of AuNPs into the clinics for use in cancer therapy methods are discussed.